Only Sinners Know Our Prayers
by ahyeon
Summary: 6 to 10 and 20 to 24; it was almost like they were promised an expiry date. "For you, I'd bleed myself dry." X/OC. Ratings may change.


**prologue - **depth of beauty

...

Timoteo is an old man.

It is a fact that no one can change. That with each passing orange dusted sunset, his body grows weary under the weight of everything he has seen and felt. His anxieties whisper into his ears and his flames flicker in great waves like the sea breaking against the shoreline.

He can feel wrinkles dip into smile lines in the crevices of his skin, feel the years finally rust his bones and work away at his masked indifference. His guardians feel it too, but neither side has made the effort to actively voice it; as if ignoring it would make the clock spin backwards.

They're all fools that way.

Timoteo is a mafia boss as he is a family man.

Xanxus has always been a difficult child to raise; always breaking expensive glass work and causing migraines to all his tutors. He can still remember the day he first picked him up- all stiff and worn from the days he and his mother spent in the slums. His hands are dry and thin and he remembers the day he fell into the pond out back. God knows what Federico was thinking when he pushed the poor boy but the older man remembers vividly how he spent the whole night just holding his ice-cold hands and wishing his late wife hadn't passed yet.

It's the first time the child let him touch him voluntarily.

It is also the first of the tragedy that would become the Cradle Affair.

"Do you think I've done the right thing?" The words echo through white walls in a constant mocking whisper, his head in his hands as the beeping plays stuck on staccato notes. The room is filled with the sound of soft breaths and his youngest guardian's awkward shuffling.

"You did what you could," Ganauche III says back, and the old man can still feel the warm electric buzz from his hand rub against his shoulder. They laugh and pretend that the girl in front of them isn't what the doctor diagnosed her as.

Timoteo is the father of four sons.

Four healthy and ambitious boys who were born to be locked under the chains of their father's world; always chasing after a shared dream that in the end, would never ever be for their fingers to grasp.

From Enrico to Massimo to Federico to Xanxus, he always looked to them with eyes of love and arms that embraced them as their all encompassing sky. He loves his boys with all his heart and soul and wishes- just wishes, that sometimes their stubbornness wouldn't keep them from seeing it as well.

He is the Ninth boss of the Vongola- a powerful mafia family that only idiots would challenge.

_"Nono, this is my oldest child Ayaka."_ His external advisor says, holding hands with a smaller girl who desperately looks like she would rather be anywhere but here. She has a slight limp to her step but neither men make a comment on it when the boss smiles and leans down to find out more about the oldest Sawada descendant.

He introduces himself in the same way he would greet her brother years later before sealing away his flames.

_"Hello,"_ the girl says slowly and shyly. Curiously peering off into the distance when the sound of obnoxious laughter fills the air before another figure bumps against his legs.

While Xanxus was polite enough during dinner parties and meetings, the boy was simply out of control in the breeches of his home. Always finding every and any kind of excuse possible to annoy at least one person in the household and cause a whole myriad of headaches.

That day, he remembers with a small smile, it just so happened to be him.

_"Xanxus, please contain yourself" _He could still remember the small pout on his face as his Storm Guardian approached them, apologizing for interrupting whatever was going on between him and his external advisor. Ayaka rolled her eyes at that and looked to her father as if trying to prove something; an action that quickly warranted his youngest son's attention.

_"Who're you supposed to be?" _Coyote seemed to pale at that, throwing a punch at the boy's head and apologizing once again for the boy's rudeness to the young Sawada girl and her father. Iemitsu had only shook his head as his daughter retreated further behind the man's leg.

_"Ayaka"_ She would say meekly, the playfulness in her eyes disappearing quickly as she observed the soon to be Varia boss. _"You?"_

_"Tch, sounds like something breaking." _Even after almost two decades, he can still remember the loud squawk that echoed through out the garden that day. The sight of two gaping men almost unforgettable in his eyes before the quiet girl jumped his son,_ "I'm Xanxus, don't forget it. Trash."_

The noise from the machine turns sporadic, quickly filling the hospital room with her uncomfortable stirring and the sound of his own heart racing. He watches as her eyes flutter open and then shut in a fluctuating pattern, gripping the bars and muttering things that no one would be able to comprehend come through surgery.

Nono can feel the years work against his own bones as the doctors usher him and Ganauche out, sinking into a bench outside the room and just trying to remember to breathe.

Someone's running through the halls, running and screaming midst the wake of flustered hospital staff. He has half the mind to pay attention to the stranger but _by the gods_ he just can't get himself to.

Beside him, Ganauche is on the phone with someone, his face all scrunched up with worry and the same anxiety that his Sky seemed to emit showed in the way his fists clenched and unwound. His eyes focused on the angry figure that was now making their way to them.

"Xanxus," he says coolly. Nodding before his - only - grandson sunk down beside him.

The two don't say anything, they don't even look at each other as people come in and out of the room before a nurse comes and tells them that she was going to be moved for surgery.

Later, Ganauche would tell him that they nodded in synch with each other.

Timoteo is an old man and he constantly makes jokes about how he would soon die before Tsuna would finally officially work as the tenth boss.

Reborn always looks at him disapprovingly at that, sometimes even barking back a snippy comment before the two would chuckle good heartedly. Neither mentioning anything about the picture he keeps on his desk, or say anything about the other Sawada girl who dropped out of the race a few years ago during Xanxus' long appointment as an icicle.

Had things hadn't gone the way they did, he would have long retired and would still be on fairly neutral speaking terms with his grandson.

"Hey." A grim voice would soon shake him out of his sleep hours later, shaking him awake before becoming painfully aware of the black leather jacket draped around his shoulders.

"Hey," the girl would retort back, imitating his grandson's deep voice. Her laughter soon bouncing off the walls of the empty hospital ward as Xanxus made a clear distinct _tch_ sound noise before she began whining.

Timoteo leaned against the wall outside the room and closed his eyes, a small smile on his lips.

"How long?"

"If you're going to tell me that I could've-"

"I asked how long, trash."

"Ever since I met you," Ayaka answered, shuffling around the room and padding around the room searching for something. No one made a noise as she continue to walk around, occasionally crashing into things and dismissing the Varia boss before pulling back what sounded like curtains.

He felt like crying as the two continued to talk in hushed tones before

"Xanxus, we're sinners." Outside the room, he could hear the sound of birds chirping and the loud siren of an ambulance pulling up into the emergency exit, "and sinners don't deserve miracles."

Timoteo is an old man but even his hearing aid couldn't disguise the way her voice quivered in the presence of the mafioso.

_No, _he mouthed to himself, _but you did_.

.

.

.

.

_One new message. Playing..._

"Hi Grandpa, it's me, Ayaka. Can you bail me and my friend out of jail ?"


End file.
